According to the documentary, this happened because Vladimir Putin wanted to prove that Russian athletes are the best, and he involved even the Federal Security Service (the former KGB) to take care of this.

I have to say that it is unfair for armwrestling and other non-Olympic games because, in the same 2014 year,Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) was very active, probably wanting to prove that they take anti-doping seriously, and made a record number of doping tests with many positive results, including the biggest number of russian armwrestlers that failed the doping test. See ► List of doping cases in Armwrestling

I also want to mention that even after this very good documentary, I don’t see Russia as being the only country doing cover ups of doping. A similar scandal took place in USA. The only difference is that in USA they don’t always kill people for telling the truth. 🙂

In 2003, Wade Exum, the United States Olympic Committee‘s director of drug control administration from 1991 to 2000, gave copies of documents to Sports Illustrated that revealed that some 100 American athletes failed drug tests from 1988 to 2000, arguing that they should have been prevented from competing in the Olympics but were nevertheless cleared to compete. Read more ► Carl Lewis – Use of Stimulants,

Back to Icarus (plot summary): When Bryan Fogel sets out to uncover the truth about doping in sports, a chance meeting with a Russian scientist transforms his story from a personal experiment into a geopolitical thriller involving dirty urine, unexplained death and Olympic Gold-exposing the biggest scandal in sports history. Icarus on imdb: 8.1 ⭐

You can watch Icarus on Netflix or on other streaming sites. Below you can watch the trailer and after that an interview with Bryan Fogel who was the director and also a main character in the documentary.